Man of Steel

Like Hamlet every generation has its Superman. You have to be a superman to bear the burden of your parents unfilled desires is one way to understand the current version, Man of Steel, directed by Zach Snyder. Jor-El (Russell Crowe) and Lara Lor-Van (Ayelet Zurer) are simply desiring the best for their son Kal-Lel (Henry Cavill), when they send him off to the equivalent of Exeter or Andover, in the form of a far away planet. Then the iconography of the movie radically shifts. The child who is an anomaly for being naturally conceived on Krypton epitomizes immaculate conception, appearing out of nowhere to his earth parents, Martha and Jonathan (Diane Lane and Kevin Costner). From then on the latest version becomes a version of the Christ myth. Kal-Lel is a superhuman creature who has become humanized during his 33 years on earth. He's referred to as the savior and warned that his extraordinary powers will be a source of suspicion to mankind, if they are revealed. He's in danger of being crucified by those he's out to rescue.The double personality of Superman is as much a survival mechanism as guise in which the Man of Steel can effect his good deeds. The notions of Superman as Moses or as a paradigm of the immigrant were also raised by Dave Izkoff’s Times review.  “The fact that you possess a sense of morality while we do not is what gives us a evolutionary advantage,” Faora-Ul (Antje Traue), one of the evil Kryptonians comments at one point. “And evolution always wins.” If Superman represents Christ than his opponents, the remnants of a fallen civilization, embody the devil--in the form of the self-imploding highly evolved technology that haunts our own time.